George Santos’s criminal history in Brazil turns out to have several comedic elements to it and provides some additional color about the man who would win election to Congress 14 years later. Truthfully, it has some of the madcap qualities of an old Three’s Company episode.
In 2008, when Santos was 19, he was living in Rio de Janeiro with mother, Fatima, who was working as a home health aide. In his mother’s purse, George found two checks belonging to Délio da Câmara da Costa Alemão, an 82-year-old man then in his mother’s care. (Fatima Devolder, Santos’s mom, later told police the man had asked her to return the checks to his bank.) George took the checks to a local clothing store where he bought shoes and clothes, identifying himself as “Delio.” The store clerk, Carlos Bruno Simoes, became suspicious after Santos left the store and tried calling the numbers on the checks but got nowhere. It was a big deal for Simoes since, as the guy who accepted the embezzled checks, he had to reimburse his employer for Santos’s fraudulent purchases.
Let me start by saying that I suspect (I think?) this is just a matter of having a sloppy attorney or poor communication within the Santos “camp,” if we can dignify it with that term. But it still jumped out at me after a reader sent in a copy of Santos’s attorney’s defiant statement attacking The New York Times. It’s a very Trumpian statement from lawyer Joseph Murray. You’ve probably read it. “George Santos represents the kind of progress that the Left is so threatened by — a gay, Latino, first generation American and Republican,” it says, among a list of other claims and attacks.
Pretty par for the course. The full statement is on Santos’s Twitter page. Murray or Santos sent it to basically every publication and it’s been reprinted in numerous articles. But if you look closely there are actually two versions of the statement. The one that showed up in most press reports is slightly different (emphasis added): “George Santos represents the kind of progress that the Left is so threatened by — a gay, Latino, immigrant and Republican …”
Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson dismissed the lawsuit lodged by unsuccessful gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake Saturday, confirming Katie Hobbs’ election as Arizona’s governor-elect.
This isn’t the kind of question I’d normally imagine myself asking. I’m not a “let’s see the birth certificate” kind of guy. But given the mounting evidence that the Rep.-elect George Santos is a perfidious and pathological lying weasel, I think we need to ask.
And I’m not asking just because …. Here’s the specific reason this comes up.
The last several years have offered especially fertile ground for conspiracy theories big and small. Some have become so engrained in our collective consciousness that it’s hard to remember they were once just whispers in the swampiest corners of the internet.
Others are just downright dumb, so memorable in their convoluted chaos that they’re worthy of several celebratory cheers.
Well, it’s over. The Jan. 6 committee has wrapped up its investigation and published its findings online for reporters to comb through right before the holidays. The final report provided more insight as to how deep the conspiracy to prop up the Big Lie went in Trumpworld.
The House select committee also published 11 recommendations for what Congress can do to prevent another insurrection from brewing. Some of the reforms are already underway, while others may take a little more legwork. Here are some of the notable suggestions they made:
Rep.-elect George Santos’ “family firm” that supposedly managed $80 million in assets was initially registered at a gynecologist’s office in a Florida office park.
With the release this week of its final report and of 34 deposition transcripts, the Jan. 6 committee has provided a fuller picture of who cooperated with its investigation – and who did not.
The committee had offered some clues about how many witnesses had taken the Fifth. Back in June, committee vice chair Liz Cheney (R-WY) hinted at the scope of noncooperation: “To date, more than 30 witnesses called before this committee … have invoked their Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination.” She wasn’t bullshitting, either.
According to TPM’s running count, at least 32 witnesses called before the committee pleaded the Fifth at least once.
Here’s the complete list:
Christopher Barcenas, Proud Boy and member of Miami-Dade’s Republican Executive Committee
Kathy Berden, a Republican National Committee member from Michigan
Alexander Bruesewitz, conservative political consultant
Patrick Casey, leader of the alt-right America First movement
James Waldron, former U.S. Army colonel who spread misinformation about election fraud
Kelli Ward, chairwoman of Arizona’s Republican Party
Garrett Ziegler, former White House aide
Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security advisor
The 5th Amendment protection against self incrimination has famously been lampooned by Donald Trump, who once said that only “the mob” pleads the Fifth, then proceeded to do so himself 400 times during a single deposition back in August.
This is the last Morning Memo of 2022. We’ll see you back here Jan. 3. Happiest of holidays to you and yours.
The Jan. 6 Committee Had What It Took
The release late last night of its 845-page final report marks the culmination of an extraordinary investigation into the most dire threat to the Republic since the Civil War.
I want to step back for a moment and survey how we got to this point, nearly two years after the Jan. 6 attack.
Popular history will likely compress the events of the past several years into a familiar arc: bad things happened, good people stood up, normalcy was restored, congratulations all around. We know that’s not what happened and not how it worked.
A dominant theme of the Trump era is the reluctance and in some ways the inability of American political culture to grasp the threat he poses. The period since the Jan. 6 attack is emblematic of the slow, halting, inconstant reaction to the threat even after it exploded in nearly catastrophic violence:
A comprehensive congressional investigation of Jan. 6 was not a given and almost didn’t happen.
The Justice Department squandered much of 2021 before it began actively investigating the entire scheme to subvert the 2020 election.
The Jan. 6 committee as it was eventually constituted was the product of a reluctance and hesitation even among Democrats. Its eventual effectiveness in unearthing important evidence and writing a narrative that stuck in the national consciousness was not at all clear at the outset and certainly wasn’t a given. Much of its effectiveness in the end was owed to Republican Vice Chair Liz Cheney (WY).
Still, it is gratifying to see some of the progress of the last two years.
Remember How Bad It Was
In January 2021, TPM had its hair on fire that the attack on Jan. 6 not be seen in isolation, but rather as part of a larger scheme to undermine democracy, delegitimize the election results in advance, and then ultimately throw out those results.
At the time, I warned: “The select committee seems determined to focus on Jan. 6 as a security breach, rather than the culmination of a months-long effort to delegitimize, undermine, interfere with and ultimately overturn the 2020 election.
Where We Are Now
Through the painstaking work of gathering evidence, interviewing witnesses, reviewing documents, and unlocking electronic communications, the Jan. 6 committee began to grasp the full scope of the 2020 subversion effort.
Belatedly, the Justice Department caught on to what the Jan. 6 committee was up to.
With its televised hearings in the summer of 2022, the committee seized the national consciousness and began to craft a public narrative for Jan. 6 that showed it was the culmination of a much broader scheme.
Liz Cheney’s emphasis on using Republican witnesses and casting Trump’s followers as patriots duped by his con opened the public mind to a new way of looking at the attack.
I happen to think that the raid on Mar-a-Lago in August and the emerging details of Trump’s mishandling of government and classified records had the important effect of reinforcing the newly emergent narrative by demonstrating anew in a clear, direct, and simple way that Trump is a chronic scofflaw, a menace, and a threat.
Where Do We Go From Here?
Congress didn’t do everything to combat Trump that I would have liked to have seen, but it did impeach him twice, it is about to update the Electoral Count Act, and the Jan. 6 committee’s work speaks for itself. With Republicans taking over the House next month, Congress’ role here is largely done. All eyes turn to the Justice Department and to a lesser extent the state investigation in Georgia.
The window for the Justice Department to act is two years. The appointment of Jack Smith as special counsel improves the odds that the investigations underway now won’t be shut down if Republicans reclaim the White House in 2024. But it remains a relatively small window, especially if you’re prosecuting a former president.
The true imperative for the Justice Department all along has not been to prosecute and convict Trump; it’s been merely to investigate him. Once it did that, the facts and evidence would lead where they may. That’s all you can ask for: just give it a good look. That is finally underway in what appears from the outside to be a comprehensive and thorough investigation.
Vindicating The Rule Of Law Is Essential But Insufficient
Accountability for a president who uses the great power of his office to flout and undermine the rule of law is essential, but the rule of law will not long survive if its only defenders are federal prosecutors. It must be deeply embedded in the political and popular culture.
In the current moment, one of the two major political parties is actively opposed to the rule of law as a guiding democratic principle. It has hitched itself to violent extremists and made the acquisition and retention of power by any means its party platform.
The Republic will remain in peril so long as the democratic consensus is broken. Armed and violent extremists retreated after Jan. 6, but have been lurking just beyond the horizon, waiting to pounce. Factions that would put their own power above democratic principle remain a threat.
Above all else, it is acutely clear that the Republic as we know it will not persist if the White House is occupied by someone who intertwines his political fortunes with violent extremism, treats the office as his personal property, uses his constitutional powers to secure power to himself, and refuses to defend the Constitution.
Other Reactions To The Jan. 6 Committee Report
Joyce Vance: “[T]the report is a compelling document that should aid people with common sense in understanding how we process Trump’s conduct following the 2020 election.”
Ryan Goodman thread on the potential legal jeopardy facing Stefan Passantino, Cassidy’s Hutchinson’s first lawyer.
Insider: Cassidy Hutchinson Googled “Watergate” to help decide whether to cooperate with January 6 committee`
Lawrence O’Donnell unwinds the incredible story of Cassidy Hutchinson:
